Eight hundred prints later
by Yui Miyamoto
Summary: After the war, how could something as thin as paper hold the key to their lives?


**fandom: Gundam Wing  
title: Eight hundred prints later.  
pairing: Duo + Heero / 2+1  
rating: pg  
description – After the war, how could something as thin as paper hold the key to their lives?**

**Disclaimer – Gundam Wing is by Sunrise. Not mine at all, just love Heero. XD**

**Eight hundred prints later.  
By miyamoto yui  
**

"You're so boring," a voice whines. The whiner scratches the back of his, making his long, chestnut brown hair sweep in a swish, swish motion.

He squats down to the ground to watch the point-haired man repair his bike so deftly yet carefully.

With his arms folded, the long-haired one sighs heavily. "Don't you ever get tired, Heero?"  
He looks up at the plain white clock hanging in the middle of the open garage.

"Hn." The dark-haired Japanese boy answers while rotating the wrench to the right to make the bolt tighter.  
The cool breeze sweeps in and the one named Heero doesn't even see the person next to him open his mouth as he interjects immediately with the call of his name, "Duo."

It is not threatening. It is not harsh, but it isn't gentle either.

"Well, it seems like you don't even sleep." Duo touches the other's soft spikes.

"…"

Duo goes to the front of the garage and puts his hands into his pockets. He whistles to make some kind of sound. He looks out into this plain neighborhood with other houses just as peaceful looking as his own.  
He can't believe it though. It always seems like the things before him don't ever last forever.

Everything fragile eventually wears away or becomes broken, don't they?

He remembered the same scene where he watched Heero repair Zero.

In times like these, what is there to do besides thinking? This is a life that isn't your own and it is all for the sake of others. It doesn't seem right or consistent with the way he is.

_I do as I please but I don't act like it._

Heero glances at him after wiping his glove over his sweaty forehead. He blinks at him. He curses himself sometimes for training to have such an expressionless face, a face that said nothing could hurt it even if he was dying inside.

That face before him has an affect on him that he can't seem to hide all the time, though. It disturbs him.

What is it about a talkative, sarcastic mouth that is so attractive to him anyway? Is it the fact that in this enclosed space, he could be so free?  
Could Duo see a world beyond the one that they had been given?

He himself, even years later, could not erase the past nor function as someone who did not know what he had done.  
It was frustrating. He who had been trained to predict every situation was one who still couldn't see as far as that. And it wasn't the strength of his heart or that he couldn't be blunt.  
Even he couldn't understand his own weakness. It made him bitter.

He looks away and continues to work. Maybe it will distract him from something he is truly running away from.

Duo somehow comes back next to him and pokes him on the forehead.  
"What?" Heero answers, monotonous as ever.

Instead of holding out his hand to prevent the finger from making contact with his forehead, it is almost as if he invited the small act of annoyance to be done to him. It seems almost too much to take.  
It is such an insignificant thing, but it means everything. Life is an accumulation of things that become routine. It is a part of nature.

And when you are used to something, you cannot be alone without it anymore.

You start to think for another's sake. It no longer becomes your own because you want to protect something. But all the while, isn't he living in order to protect something? Didn't that seem ironic in a way?  
There are things to protect from your heart and there are things to protect for the sake of being able to understand. Sometimes these two things do not coincide. Though they stem from logic and emotion, these things never seemed to intersect.

Almost, sadly, they are meant to be kept separate.

Each thing and person has its place. They are there to be used to acquire another thing or person. Nothing is ever to last forever, so there is no sense of making an attachment to it.

Yet, he points his eyes downward to the stony ground. Against his better judgment, he sighs. In resentment or resignation, he himself could not decide what to do about being poked.

At the time he is about to wipe his forehead with his dirty glove, Duo instead wipes it with his own black sleeve, including the small specks of dirt and oil. Heero darts his eyes to the right side, seeing Duo looking at him straight on.

Unwavering, they watch each other so intensely.

Smoothly, Duo just shrugs his shoulders and rolls up his sleeves. He smiles so brightly that even his eyes look like they are grinning too.

Pulling out a mini camera, he silently takes another round of pictures of Heero.

Heero turns his head away and his bangs cover his eyes. But without knowing, a smile, ever so slightly, emerges.

Eight hundred prints later, Duo finally captures it.

"Perfection isn't everything, you know," Duo smugly says as he gets up inconspicuously. "Sometimes people need to talk to know what they want and need."

Heero catches his wrist and eyes the camera that is as thin as a sheet of paper. "Mm."

He takes the camera and puts it in his pocket, wherever that may be in white, tight-ass shorts.  
"Hey!"

Heero lifts up his head and he grins so widely his white teeth are showing. Then, he throws the camera back when he gets up. "Gotcha."

Duo's jaw hangs in disappointment.

Heero returns to the bedroom and proudly opens his closet. It is a wallpaper made of pictures meticulously placed to show the different expressions of Duo Maxwell: happy when he eats chocolate, sad when he's denied food, angry when he's woken up from a nap too early, hungry when he misses his daily meals (prepared by Heero, of course), great when climbs a mountain, silly when he gets lost in his own (yet new) neighborhood…

He has WAY more pictures than the eight hundred prints Duo took. He had one for everyday since they met, and two for every day they were together.

They were innumerable after two thousand and seven. Yes, even he lost count.  
"Of course I don't sleep. I am always watching over you so that you don't get into trouble."

_Before you, I didn't even live._

At that moment, he sits down and just sleeps with his arms folded on the wooden floor. Duo quietly opens the door to their room and puts the brown teddybear comforter over him. It is rare that he slept after Heero, who never seemed to run out of things to do in a day like accounting or writing in his diary, unlike himself whose main hobby, after all that had happened, is napping.

Duo stands up to look at the closet that is always tightly shut. He cannot believe he is staring at himself.  
Even though he was a prankster, he didn't ever want to betray Heero's trust, so he didn't ever open that closet even if it had no lock.  
He tilts his head to one side. And then he tilts it to the other. He tries to hold back the tears. He thought he was incapable of crying since he'd promised himself that tears couldn't do anything against actions and decisions.

They had been playing this game the whole time not knowing the other was watching them so closely in admiration and in such high esteem. It was hard to almost accept that the other was not 'perfect'.

He carries Heero in his arms and kisses his forehead as they head to the car. Even when he starts the engine, Heero slept so soundly. Quietly, Duo said to him, "Even from far away, I could always feel you were right beside me. But I didn't know that you paid this much attention to me."

The Heero that knew himself always felt so bad for being unable to say things that he should have, but what Duo couldn't say was that he wished that he was able to hold back when he should have.

That night, without sleeping Duo drove all the way to the beach to watch the sunrise together. Of course, they had seen many together, but no matter how many times you come to the same place,

each time is different,  
each person you are is too.

And he knew that those dark blue eyes held things darker and deeper than the ocean. Within himself, he knew there was a similar kind of ocean that he did not want to swim through ever again.  
But Duo wanted to bring Heero to his favorite place.

_**"Inside the ocean, there is no noise. No one shouting, no one crying, no one laughing, no one singing…  
I wanted to live there."**_

This is the world that Heero once told Duo. This was the world he once lived in, upon this Earth.

But when Heero had opened his eyes to see Duo that day, many years ago, he was angry his heart still beat and that Kamisama had sent someone to save him…

…because deep inside, that wish was lying beneath the unmoving sand that made the foundation of his heart.

And for Duo, that day he saw him was the day he was hoping that he could finally meet someone that would not turn him away because of the strength he had built up to face the world that he couldn't truly live in…

…because deep inside, that was scraping away at the surface that made the power of his smile.

So to each of them, every picture is not only precious or more than life itself…

…it serves as proof that they had lived this life to see the other.

**Owari. / The End.**

**Author's note: **I have been feeling nostalgic lately. And I found myself crying on the train when I heard 'Just Communication'. Too many things came back to me all at once. I miss good anime like G-Wing. I think I wanna buy the whole series just to watch it all over again.

I hope you enjoyed it!

Love always, yui

**6/11/2007 7:36:43 AM – LA  
6/11/2007 11:36 PM - Tokyo**


End file.
